“A nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain has the potential to inflict immeasurable harm on the health and safety of Nevadans and our economy, and that’s why I’m pleased with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision today to grant Nevada’s motion to dismiss,” Sen. Heller said after the court issued the ruling on June 1.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Court granted a motion filed by Nevada to dismiss the Texas lawsuit, which alleged that the federal government had ignored a 2012 deadline to complete the licensing process for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository site.

……… The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has spent an estimated $8 billion studying the site and constructing an exploratory tunnel beneath Yucca Mountain – which is pretty much all that exists there now, according to the office. DOE estimates costs could reach $97 billion to construct and operate a repository at the site. Moreover, because no railroad exists to transport waste to the site, one would have to be built through Nevada to the mountain site. The estimated price tag could top $3 billion, according to the EYCMI Office.

Thus far, no federal funds have been allocated for the DOE’s proposed Yucca Mountain site, where proponents think burying the waste combined from 131 different U.S. sites would be the safest bet, while opponents of the plan say the desert mountain’s underground site isn’t a viable option to host a nuclear waste repository because the area is prone to earthquakes and even volcanic activity, according to the ECYMI Office.

1.This Month

The climate change threat to nuclear power

By Natalie Kopytko“…………The final problem is droughts, which climate models predict will become longer and larger. Legal battles have already been fought in the US over scarce water resources in regions with nuclear power plants, including the Catawba river basin in the Carolinas and the Apalachicola/Chattahoochee/Flint river basin in Georgia, Florida and Alabama. These battles show us that adapting our systems – including nuclear power – to a reduced supply of water will not be easy.

The International Atomic Energy Agency advises the nuclear industry to build power plants to last for 100 years. Given that climate models don’t agree on what to expect within this time period, it is not at all clear how this can be achieved.

New reactors could use dry or hybrid systems with lower water requirements, but the costs of running these systems are likely to be prohibitive. Considering nuclear power plants already have problems with construction cost overruns, any additional costs are likely to meet resistance.

What is to be done? Most forms of energy generation are vulnerable in some way to the effects of climate change, and the fact that nuclear power is among them is yet another argument against a wholesale shift towards this source of energy.